Expansion of trade and empire

Transcription

1 P5-34-GECKO 22/5/02 10:56 am Page 5 1 Expansion of trade and empire In 1900 Britain had an empire that covered a quarter of the world s land surface. An empire is when one country, in this case Britain, gains control and has power over another country or countries. How was it that Britain, a relatively small northwest European island, was able to gain such power? The key to understanding this question is by looking at three important factors: trade, war and exploration. There are two very clear stages to the development and growth of the British Empire: The old colonial system. From 1750 to the middle of the nineteenth century, the main reason for building an empire was to improve trade. The aim of the British was to set up colonies in the Americas and Asia in order to provide goods such as sugar and tobacco. The colonies also served as an important market for British goods. The British used their armed forces to set up colonies and to prevent Britain s rivals, especially France and Russia, from building up empires of the same size. The new imperialism. It wasn t until towards the end of the nineteenth century that the empire was popular with the British people. Slavery, which had been such an important part of the British Empire in the eighteenth century (see pages 7 9) was abolished and colonies such as Canada wanted some kind of self-government. However, the empire continued to grow, especially in Africa. From the 1870s onwards this expansion was increasingly justified by the idea of what the poet, Rudyard Kipling, called the white man s burden. Behind this view was the racist belief in the superiority of the white British and their ability to civilise the world. Trade remained the essential element of the empire. The empire lasted so long (until after the Second World War) because of the ability of the British to protect successfully their gains. Trade and empire From the mid-seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, the builders of the empire were not governments but trading companies, such as the East India Company. This company was given a charter (which meant it was given permission) by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 to trade with countries in the East. Trading companies attempted to gain land and seize control of raw materials in whichever area they were operating. Most importantly, the trading companies wanted to create a monopoly (complete control over trade in something) in the raw materials they were dealing in. 5

2 P5-34-GECKO 22/5/02 10:56 am Page 6 N Canada NORTH USA British Honduras Pacific Ocean Key The British Empire Lands controlled by the British (Names in brackets are the modern names for the countries.) km 2500 miles Russian Empire United Kingdom EUROPE ASIA Gibraltar China Japan Atlantic Ocean Peru Brazil British Guiana (Guyana) Gambia Sierra Leone Gold Coast (Ghana) Egypt Sudan Nigeria Uganda Aden India British Somaliland (Somalia) Ceylon British (Sri Lanka) East Africa (Kenya) Burma (Myanmar) Hong Kong Malaya (Malaysia) Singapore AFRICA Indian Ocean Chile SOUTH Cape Colony (South Africa) Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) AUSTRALASIA Tasmania New Zealand The British Empire in Colonisation and Conflict

3 P5-34-GECKO 22/5/02 10:57 am Page 7 When other European countries such as France, the Netherlands or Spain challenged a British company s trade in goods, the British government often stepped in to fight on their behalf (although some companies, such as the East India Company, had their own armies). The governments intervened because at the time most people believed in the ideas known as mercantilism. These ideas were: Wealth is created by trade. All nations want to sell more goods abroad (exports) than they buy from abroad (imports). Therefore trade has to be controlled. The best way to control trade is to create colonies. This means that a country can control what is imported and exported by their colonies. It also means that there is a market for exports. It is the role of the government to protect trade, both with armies and with tariffs (a tax imposed on goods imported into a country). What was the slave trade? The Triangular Trade. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of the most profitable trades was in slaves. As Portuguese, Spanish, French and British settlers in South America and the West Indies began to grow sugar cane, cotton and tobacco crops, so their demand for workers increased. It was the British, more than any other nation, that developed the Atlantic slave system known as the Triangular Trade (see below). Each leg of the trade carried different items to trade. NORTH Pacific Ocean Caribbean Sugar Rum Cotton Tobacco SOUTH Atlantic Ocean Trinkets Tools Arms West Africa EUROPE Key Indian Ocean Europeans took goods to Africa to exchange for slaves were taken to the Americas Europeans went back to Europe from the Americas with goods they traded slaves for gold, silver, sugar and tobacco N 7

4 P5-34-GECKO 22/5/02 10:57 am Page 8 Europe to Africa: manufactured and other goods were exchanged for slaves. Africa to the Americas: slaves were sold to plantation owners. The Americas to Europe: raw materials such as cotton and goods such as tobacco and sugar were traded. European slave traders got slaves in a number of ways. Occasionally they mounted raids on the West African coast, capturing Africans whom they then enslaved. African and Arab slave traders brought slaves to slave markets on the West African coast. There they would be bought by European slave traders. These slave traders brought goods from Europe which they exchanged for the slaves. The slaves would then be transported to the Americas on a journey known as the Middle Passage. Between 1700 and 1807 around 12 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic. Roughly fifteen per cent of those transported died on the journey. Investigations into the slave trade revealed that conditions on board the slave ships were horrific. In 1788 a committee of the House of Commons in London found that the slave ship The Brookes was carrying over 600 slaves from Africa to the Americas. This was despite the fact that the ship was designed to carry only 451 people. The impact of the slave trade was considerable. Huge fortunes were created and ports such as Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow were built on the profits of the trade in slaves. Between 1690 and 1807 around 11,000 ships left Britain, half of them from Liverpool, intending to trade in slaves. As a result of the slave trade and the work of slaves in the West Indian sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations the standard of living rose in Britain and Europe. This was because, for the first time, cheap sugar became widely available, which helped improve diets. British industry benefited from the export of its goods to Africa but it was not just the British who benefited from slavery. In Africa the slave trade led to the creation of powerful West African kingdoms as a small number of Africans profited from selling slaves to the Europeans. Digging deeper What were conditions like on the slave ships? SOURCE A Throughout the journey the slaves were chained together by their hands and feet. They had to eat, sleep and relieve themselves in the same place. were often kept below deck in the dark. Diseases such as smallpox and dysentery wiped out considerable numbers of slaves. Because the slaves were kept in such poor and inhuman conditions they were often unable to work on arrival in the Americas. Many died within the first three years of work in the sugar plantations. Some slaves resisted and jumped overboard. Others committed suicide by refusing to eat. Many of the slaves were crippled for life as a consequence of the way they were chained up on the ship. An historian writing in Colonisation and Conflict

5 P5-34-GECKO 22/5/02 10:57 am Page 9 SOURCE B An engraving from 1861 showing a slave being lowered into the hold of a slave ship. SOURCE C At last, when the ship, in which we were, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck The stench of the hold, while we were on the coast, was so intolerably horrible, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, being so crowded that each had scarcely room to run himself, almost suffocated us the air soon became unfit for respiration [breathing], from a variety of loathsome smells and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died This deplorable situation was aggravated by the galling [rubbing] of the chains and the filth of necessary tubs [toilets], into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered it a scene of horror almost inconceivable. Question time Look back at Sources A, B and C. 1 What do the sources tell us about the treatment of slaves in the Middle Passage? 2 Discussion point. were regarded by slave traders as cargo. Why, then, did the traders not take better care of them? Olaudah Equiano wrote this in At the age of eleven, he was captured by slave traders and was loaded onto a slave ship. 9